Boston may be one of our oldest cities, but it's also one of our most frequently revised, by an annual flood of young-ish new residents. They merge surprisingly well with those crooked pre-grid streets. Maybe that's because the city's ways—colonial charm; literary gravitas; coming-of-age angst amidst the stately stone and brick—are so tested, so enduring, and so unprepossessingly cool that they've become an export: blue blazers and dog-eared copies of "Catcher in the Rye" read Boston no matter where you find them. But Boston's also home to thriving food and tech scenes, and, like San Francisco, more — and better—culture than its size would seem to warrant. And as for those exports—well, no one does it better than the original.